OTM founder: Agents have lost chance to control their own industry

The chance for estate agents to control their own industry has been lost for good, OnTheMarket founder Trevor Abrahmsohn has claimed.

Writing in The Times last weekend following the shareholder approval for US-owned CoStar to acquire the once agent-owned portal, Abrahmsohn reiterated his dissatisfaction with the deal.

He questioned if the takeover will help with the aim of displacing Rightmove’s dominance and giving agents control of portal costs, adding: “Will OnTheMarket and CoStar do anything to change this feudal relationship or just increase the burden on agents to pay higher fees? It will be interesting to see how the sand settles and what effect this acquisition will have.

“Unfortunately, estate agents’ ownership and control over their own industry and data is now lost for good.

"All three portals are now owned by groups aligned to their shareholders and not agents or customers. This was something I was so keen to protect for the good of the industry.

“Ordinarily [he who pays the piper calls the tune’, but unfortunately that is not the case for the estate agents. OTM is an early Christmas present for CoStar but a booby prize for the OTM shareholders.

CoStar made a £100m takeover bid through its UK arm for OTM in November and vowed to “aggressively” build the business and grow its market share.

The takeover was approved by shareholders last week and OTM is set to be delisted this week.